About the Author Born in Chennai in 1991, Gautham Ramakrishnan has been dabbling in poetry since the age of 14. A student of arts and humanities, he is a teacher and basketball coach in Kodaikanal, and, believing in the power of words – which have the ability to give wings to imagination and creativity – he is on a mission to teach children to read and enjoy books.

Teaser

Sun and Moon

As crisp memory And an evanescent vision Rarely ever does abscond Beyond the realms of thought As it slips through sunlit rooftops Between the closing walls That rise in the sinking night.

I woke up beside a bright And burning star, I had dreamt I was consumed By the jaws of the wolf, The fangs tearing Swallowing the moon and the sun. I dreamt of a mirror Reflecting time upon my face, And dreams of hours Have moved beyond its grasp As the darkness of the unknown Lurks behind the dawn of sight.

The stars spare no disquiet But wink mischievously behind The silent veil of night, While the sun dies Behind the moon’s laughter And such a universe Prolongs my waiting love Of a deathly silence Of a life altered by every breath I take, Left behind by the empty spaces of memory.

About the Author Born in 1986, Basudhara Roy has been teaching English for the last eight years as Assistant Professor in Karim City College, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. A student of St. Xavier’s School, Bokaro Steel City, and later, an alumnus and gold medallist of Banaras Hindu University (2009), Basudhara was awarded the UGC Junior Research Fellowship and has earned her doctoral degree from Kolhan University, Chaibasa, for her work on the exploration of cultural space in the short fiction of Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee, and Jhumpa Lahiri. Her poems, articles, short stories and research papers have appeared in several journals within the country. This is her first collection of poems. Fond of books, plants, music, and good conversation, Basudhara lives in Jamshedpur with her husband and two little sons.

Teaser

Taking the Cue

I take my cue of love from commercial advertisements, furtively-read women’s magazines, and the husky Bollywood songs of my adolescence.

The senses are schooled to respond to the rise and fall of quivering glances, to the gradual inching together of expectant bodies, to the vibrant play of fingertips on palpably throbbing flesh.

I long for the astounding riot of colours – red, orange, yellow, gold – the kaleidoscope bursting open, raining its ostentatious patterns in dappled waves of virgin silk, on senses already smoking like camphor on flame.

The night becomes a young damsel waiting to be fulfilled. Her luxuriant darkness becomes the mattress of my longing. My dutifully-knotted morning hair urges the reciprocity of desire to be set free in wild tresses of self-conscious abandonment.

You only turn upon your back and sleep. Perhaps you take your cue from a different source.

Joe Winter was born in London in 1943 and began writing poetry at the age of 19, as a university student. He taught English in secondary schools in London from 1967 to 1993 and between 2006 and 2011. He lived in Calcutta from 1994 to 2006 where he taught part-time as well. All his books of poems have been published by Writers Workshop, India, along with works of literary criticism and translations.

About the Author Rajen Brijnath was born in Lahore in 1935 and moved with his family to Jamshedpur in May 1947. He graduated from St Stephen’s College, Delhi and worked in ITC Ltd from 1955 till 1988. He moved to Dehra Dun in 1988 where he practised as independent consultant in human relations and development till 2014. For seven years he was advisor to Doon Library and Research Centre. He is passionate about music, philosophy, literature, equality of women and men, peace and has been writing essays and poems since he retired. He has travelled from ardent Christianity in his youth to agnosticism to “wobbly” but earnest atheism now.

Teaser

In his preface, Rajen Brijnath writes:

“For a long time I have been grappling with the concepts of being ‘Human.’ It has been a delightful, knowledge-filled never-ending ‘Bout’; winners on both sides – I and my understandings. I haven’t much time left – I’m 80-plus now and I need to set down where we are – my understandings and I.

So I’ve done this now in the form of an essay on ‘Humanness’, the processes of being Human (Insaaniyat in Hindustani). The essay uses the structure of enquiries I have made, and continue to make, of myself and my work in the management development of a large multinational business organisation; and into many years of consultancy after I ‘retired’. In this multi-faceted enquiry I have made inroads of quest into anthropological and sociological thickets, sometimes extracting myself with difficulty! What a journey it has been and immensely rewarding for me.

I continued to oscillate between two positions, which were not ’polar’ but complementary: (a) the self-esteem and joy which reside in the acceptance of my Humanness and (b) the challenges which demand my best as a human …

But there was something missing in the possibilities, contingencies and potentialities I was delineating, I couldn’t put a logical finger on it, but I could feel their absenceintuitively. Then it hit me suddenly. I had been writing poems for some time – I found huge joy, fulfilment and completeness in writing poetry. Why didn’t I publish whatever I’ve written and see which poems link up with which aspects of Humanness? Further reflection assured me that I did not need to make any pointers or markers. Readers were their own translators, interpreters and would make meanings and linkages without any help from outside their fields of understanding.

The essay and the poems are here. Both contain relevant parts of me; both contain aspects of and the spirit of Humanness. They are there in the same volume because they belong together and can be used and enjoyed by the reader in any way s/he desires …

My hope is that the reader will be glad s/he encountered the essay and the poems and negotiated the path between their respective but friendly universes.”

About the Author Professor Mohammad Hasan, born in Taranagar (Rajasthan), studied geography in the Universities of Jodhpur and Syracuse, New York. He taught at the Universities of Jodhpur and Nairobi (Kenya), and HCM Rajasthan State Institute of Public Administration, Jaipur. A recipient of the Fulbright-Hays Scholarship for doctoral and advanced research on South Asians in the USA, he was also awarded a British Council Fellowship at Manchester University, UK. He was a member of the Academic Council and Board of Studies, Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), and the Rajiv Gandhi Social Security Mission, Rajasthan. He has delivered lectures at the University of California-Davis, Syracuse University, International Rivers Network (Berkeley), Osmania University, AMU and administrative training institutions in India. A peace rights activist, he writes on environment and community issues, and organizes relief operations for disaster victims. He lives in Jaipur.

Teaser

The Presidents

History has strange warps and wefts Across the world we live in. When it comes to minorities, Things often take a familiar tilt.

When the Sikhs of Delhi were burnt alive, There was a Sikh President, Snubbed and ignored. We don’t know Whether he cried or was indignant.

When Gujarati Muslims were slaughtered, Women were raped, their houses razed, There was a Muslim president, Humble and always in bliss. Many vociferously chorused: He is great! Then the greatness was in gazing at stars. He was a President restrained!

When a white policeman Killed an innocent black In a crowded American lane, The first black American President Looked helpless and very sad. But he said what he could say, In sympathetic, dignified ways, Putting balm on green wounds Always kept flared.

About the Author Prabha Prakash is a chartered accountant by profession and writer by passion. Her poems have been published in Ink Drift, Kalaage and the Women’s Day issue of Delhi Poetry Slam. She blogs at Epiphanic Moments. Apart from writing, she loves teaching and Carnatic music.

Teaser

A Lost Monsoon

The “new” sheds its charm Amateurish and incomplete And stoops down – As if in defeat – To the peerless grace and completeness Of what was – Of the beauty in cracked walls and leaking roofs And wrinkled hands and damp floors, Of an old rain that was a unique contrast; Days when the droplets poured into our hearts And a warmth spread in our souls – As if proving to be a visual oxymoron; Today, the rain sends chills down the spine Forming a frozen void within, Searching in vain For that lost solace, The cuddling hands And that serene face That are now stiff and pale And numb and cold – Indifferent and invisible Somewhere, With tears burnt And emotions buried – Dissolved in the monsoon. Forever.

About the Translator Born in 1945, Surajit Borooah, besides being a sportsperson of eminence in the 1960s and 1970s, was a well-known broadcaster of All India Radio and Doordarshan. He retired as a Professor of English from Arya Vidyapeeth College in 2006. He was the president of North East India Forum for English Studies and the vice-president of North East Writers’ Forum. He is an avid photographer and was president of the North East Photographic Society. He was the president of the Board of Trustees, member of the Management Council and member, Board of Directors of the B. Borooah Cancer Institute, Guwahati.

Besides writing innumerable articles in newspapers and journals, he specializes in translating modern Assamese poetry into English and his translations and writings have been published in various journals of the state and the country, including Indian Literature of the Sahitya Akademi. He has published the translation of a novel by Dr. Jayanti Chutia titled Tears of Solitude and the first volume of Selected Assamese Poetry, published by Writers Workshop, India, in 2015. He was invited to the Bengaluru Poetry Festival in 2017 as a panelist. He received the runners-up award of Muse India Satish Verma awards, 2017.

About the Author Srutimala Duara is a writer, an academician and a media person. Her books in English include three novels, three collections of short stories, two books of poems, and a book on the city of Guwahati. Her books in Assamese include six story books for young children, a collection of short stories and two novels. She was a columnist writing under the heading “Chitra Bichitra” in the popular local daily, Dainik Asom, and also had a column, “Slices of Life”, in The Sentinel. She contributes articles, especially travelogues, regularly to local newspapers.

Duara is an Associate Professor in the Department of English, Handique Girls’ College, Guwahati. She was awarded the Naari Shakti Award in April 2015 by Lions Club and Woman of the Year 2016 by International Human Rights Council (Assam Chapter). She is a founder member of Northeast Writers’ Forum, comprising writers of English from the eight northeastern states.

She was a presenter in Doordarshan Kendra, Guwahati, for 20 years. She has acted in television serials, on stage, and in more than 50 radio plays.

Teaser

Life

Life speaks to me through dead words when I lie under the cracked ceiling

About the Author Michael Chacko Daniels lives and writes in San Francisco. He grew up in Bombay, where he attended St. Michael’s High School, Wilson College, and University of Bombay’s Department of Economics. He has a master’s from Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism. His adventures in the United States include five years as a Volunteer In Service To America (VISTA); four as editor/publisher of the New River Free Press of Grand Rapids, Michigan; four as assistant editor in San Francisco at The Asia Foundation; and sixteen at Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living. He helped start the Jobs for Homeless Consortium of Alameda County (California) in 1988, and to run it through mid-2004. He is a naturalized citizen of the United States. He has been writing for over five decades. Writers Workshop, India, has published seven of his books: Split in Two (poetry, 2004), Anything Out of Place Is Dirt (novel, 2004), That Damn Romantic Fool (novel, 2005), Morning in Santiniketan (haiku, 2010), The Mendonҫa Mystery and Other Stories (short stories, 2014), The Flea-Driven Traveler & Fifty-One Senryu, Haiku, Haibun (poetry, 2016) and Savages and Other Neighbours (novel, 2017).

About the Illustrators

Aaron Bass is a printmaker and illustrator who grew up along the industrialized beaches of both the east and west coasts of the United States. The childhood memories of biological and manufactured debris that washed up on those shores had a profound effect on his later work. Aaron’s work is primarily focused on expressing a contemporary urban interpretation of animism and incorporates bones, found objects, and other scavenged materials. His prints have been exhibited in Japan, South Korea, Mexico, the U.K., India, Germany, and Pakistan, as well as across the U.S. He has taught printmaking at Southwest University of the Visual Arts and the University of New Mexico. He has worked as a collaborative printer and for the leading press manufacturer, Takach Press. Currently, Aaron lives in New Mexico with his wife, son, and a variety of small animals. His work can be viewed at: http://www.crowsfootpress.com.

Krittika Ramanujan is an artist, born in Chicago, now living in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has an MFA in printmaking from the University of New Mexico. She has three main bodies of artwork on Dante’s Divine Comedy, mammal skeletons, and human rights. She has illustrated (with Aaron Bass) The Mendonca Mystery and Other Stories (2014) by Michael Chacko Daniels.

Teaser

Chairman Mao Didn’t Brush

There’s much I comfortably ignore:

Chairman Mao didn’t brush, I know, but Why he had his pictures show white teeth (Snow flakes on a dial-a-trick mountain?), I pass over.

Nehru loved Edwina, I know, but Why two warships to guard her body (Escorts to a skeptic’s Naraka?), I pass over.